President Trump and his education secretary Linda McMahon said on several occasions that they wanted to send education “to the United States”. But in recent proceedings, the administration is accused of doing the opposite: exercising the power of the federal government to tell schools what they can and cannot teach.
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Alex Brandon / AP
Three federal judges, in Maryland, New Hampshire and Washington, DC, judged Thursday that the Trump administration had overestimated when it Commanded nation schools To stop all diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI) as well as class education, the administration could consider discrimination. For the moment, this means that the United States Ministry of Education cannot explain its threat to punish non-compliant districts by retaining vital federal funding, including dollars that help K-12 schools to serve low-income students and disabled children.
US District Judge Landya B. McCafferty, appointed by Obama in New Hampshire, began his opinion by noting the importance of protecting academic freedom in the United States and exposing students to a multitude of points of view.
“In this case, the court examines the measures of the executive power which threatens to erode these fundamental principles,” wrote McCafferty.
The American district judge Stephanie A. Gallagher, appointed by Trump in Maryland, wrote: “This court is constitutionally required to scrutinize closely if the government has made the (political) creation and implementation of the way the law requires.”
“The government has not done so,” she discovered.
Gallagher has issued a temporary stay preventing the Trump administration from enforcing his threat to schools, while McCafferty blocked the application in any school that uses a teacher from one of the groups who brought the pursuit of New Hampshire, including the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the country.
The Department of Education did not respond to a request for NPR comments.
The three opinions, in three distinct cases, raise similar concerns – and suggest that the Trump administration has work to convince the courts that its anti -dei efforts are legal.
The administration “does not even define what a” program of “” is
McCafferty, in New Hampshire, blamed the Trump administration for its imprecision.
In his decision, McCafferty criticized a February 14 Letter “Dear colleague” of the American education department. The letter maintains that schools, in the name of Dei, “have students endocrinated toxically with the false premise that the United States is built on” systemic and structural racism “and advanced discriminatory policies”.
But, wrote McCafferty, “the letter does not even define what a” program ofi “is.
This imprecision was a common theme among decisions.
“Although the contested documents put particular emphasis on” certain Dei practices “, they do not provide an exploitable definition of what constitutes a” Dei “or a practice” Dei “, wrote the American district judge Dabney L. Friedrich in Washington, DC Friedrich is also a name of Trump.
In this case, brought by the NAACP, Friedrich agreed with a preliminary injunction.
In Maryland, Gallagher criticized the administration for completing his letter from “dear colleague” with large allegations on harmful and discriminatory education, but neglecting to include “all factual quotes or references to any fact supporting its assertions”.
On February 27, this letter from “dear colleague” was followed by the creation of a portal of the department by which the parents were encouraged to report the teaching or the policies which they consider to be discriminatory. THE Official advertisement The Cite Tiffany Justice portal, co-founder of conservative mothers for Liberty: “Parents are now the moment when you share the recipes for betrayal that occurred in our public schools.”
And then April 3, the Department of Education went further: demanding that the school districts of kindergarten to kindergarten certify, in writingWhether they comply with the extended interpretation of the Ministry of the Federal Anti-discrimination Act, or risk losing their federal funding.
The districts are already required to certify their compliance with the existing federal law, which Gallagher noted in his decision.
The Administration maintains that its interpretation is not new – that many policies of Dei violent the title VI of the law on civil rights of 1964 and that the recent anti -dei efforts of the government are eligible because they simply apply the preexisting federal law.
Gallagher, in Maryland, noted this “non -persuasive” argument.
“If the (the letter” dear colleague “) said nothing new,” wrote Gallagher, “then why is it linked to a new portal for research specifically of the cases of division ideologies” and “indoctrination”, when there has always been a portal for anyone to report racial discrimination or racially hostile environments? “”
The lack of clarity “will ryse the fear and doubt of the teachers”
Adding such a serious consequence – the loss of federal funding – to a new set of poorly defined policies and behaviors could have a frightening effect on schools, warned McCafferty.
For example, she imagined that “a primary teacher could seek to establish an equitable and inclusive treatment class culture by asking her students to sign a collective commitment to follow the` `golden rule ” for the whole school year. It is more than concerned that such a practice would come in the definition on the scale of the Ocean of Dei above.”
Or, how should the professors of the history of the nation approach the racial racial past of America, given the affirmation of the department which speaks of “systemic and structural racism” has students “toxically”?
McCafferty noted the story of a college history teacher in New Hampshire, New Hampshire:
“Discuss the … promulgation of the civil rights law of 1866 and the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, the Jim Crow South, the KKK Foundation and the Tulsa race massacre – imply that discussions on the breed and the race and the perceptions of different racial groups shaped American history,” McCafferty wrote. But “this professor is now afraid of being accused of engaging in discrimination so that they have nothing to teach historical facts”.
The threat to the federal school funding of schools, associated with the dei portal, so that parents report the teachers they believe they have crossed the line, “raise the spectrum of a public witch hunt that will ryse the fear and doubt of the teachers,” warned McCafferty.
Can executive power influence the school program?
Trump and his education secretary Linda McMahon said on several occasions that they wanted to eliminate the United States Ministry of Education and send education “Back to the United States.” But, in these prosecution, the administration is accused of doing the opposite: to exercise the power of the federal government of telling schools what they can and cannot teach.
Two of Thursday’s decisions note that federal law Expressly prohibited the American Department of Education from exercising “any direction, supervision or control over the study program, the teaching program, the administration or the staff of any educational, school or school system”.
The ministry argued that its efforts are legal because they apply the anti-discrimination federal law, but McCAfferty noted this “insufficient” argument.
“Although it is true that a line must be drawn somewhere between the legitimate prerogative of the ministry to apply the anti-discrimination law and its prohibition to control the program, the letter and its associated documents do not make this line.”
As for whether the letter goes beyond the legal authority of the Department of Education, wrote Gallagher, the Trump administration insists that “simply informs schools that they should not discriminate between students when implementing their programs and must avoid stereotypes and stigmatization according to race”.
Gallagher’s skeptical answer: “This court must be concerned with what the letter really says, not what the government says that the letter says.”
As such, “by declaring large categories of speech discriminatory discrimination in class”, wrote Gallagher, “in the context of a letter threatening measures to apply discriminatory practices, the DoE exercises orientation, supervision or control” on the program, the teaching program, the administration or the staff of (schools.) ” ”
In short, the Department of Education seems to do precisely what the federal law says that it cannot.
“The government cannot proclaim entire categories of content in discriminatory class of Pas The limits of its statutory authority,” said Gallagher.
The Trump administration is likely to challenge the three decisions.
